


Dance Away From Me

by yankee_jim



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Buzzfeed, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Skeptic Shane Madej, non-linear, shyan, shyan fic, shyanlibrary, skeptic believer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-12-07 16:44:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18237548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yankee_jim/pseuds/yankee_jim
Summary: "It took every bit of energy I hadTo refrain from running out to you.And holding you as you were the dancing ghost.But instead I walked across the arthritic wooden floors.With handcuffs in my hands.""Who knew I would end up with my hands tangled in your hair and my life tangled in an impeccable knot.""The sun was about to go to sleep.She didn’t have anyone to embrace her after darkShe never had the chance to meet the moon in an interrogation room."





	Dance Away From Me

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Thank you for choosing to read my story! I think I'm the new guy in town. I haven't written a BFU story before. I'm not really sure if any other boys even write Shyan fanfiction but here I am.
> 
> This is a Buzzfeed Unsolved story. A Shyan story if you will. I do know they aren't together in real life and are in happy relationships, of course! In this story Ryan is a cop and Shane is a criminal.
> 
> I will have you know that parts of my storyline was inspired by "icantwritegood" and their story "The Bizarre Road Trip of a Missing Family." You should read it it is very well thought out!
> 
> The art on the cover page is by Janet Kozachek.
> 
> I've chosen to write this story kind of like a poem. Some parts of the story are meant to be left open for interpretation. This story is non-linear and it's kind of important that it stays that way, but in the end all the parts add up! That's all I am going to say. Please enjoy!

****

**“You kissed me that morning as if you’d never done it before and never would again and now I write another letter that I will never dare to send, collecting memories of loss like chains tight around my chest,**  
**and if you see a fire from the shore tonight**  
**it’s my chains going up in flames.”**

\- **Eriksson**

**__________________**

 

**“The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil."**

**\- Jeff Cooper**

I remember finding your number in a file. I wasn’t supposed to do that.

 

But I called you anyway, hands hot as my fingers glided over my badge

 

“Meet me here immediately,” I yelled into the line. You refused.

 

Like a criminal being forced to meet at the police station, you refused.

 

So we met at a grand hotel.

 

“I want you to be very careful with the words you choose to say back to me,” I prefaced, your gaze of gold pounding through my seemingly impenetrable wall.

 

As soon as I said it, why did you kill her, you drew it on me. A thick black pen or a gun. I don’t quite remember which.

 

It was not condoned that I asked in the first place.

 

So I pulled out my thick black marker too and pointed it at your determination-framed face.

 

Poor thing.

 

Then I sent a bullet through the grand hotel and into your shoulder and watched you double over and bleed.

 

I like to think I felt no remorse.

 

I asked why you did it once more, why you took her life, but you simply responded with,

 

As you lay helpless on the lavish floor

 

“You’re going to regret this, Ryan.”

 

“Look what you’ve done now, Ryan.”

“Don’t leave, Ryan.”

 

But I left.

 

I called you an ambulance and left.

 

“Send me back to jail, I don’t care.”

 

You cared.

 

 

 

**“Because love is continual interrogation. I don't know of a better definition of love.”**

**\- Milan Kundera **

A cold silence echoed through the room as you, a lean giant, shifted in your plastic chair, back hunched over and lips traced with a smirk.

 

We had not met before.

 

“You know what you’ve done is illegal,” I towered over you and questioned, though not expecting much of an answer.

 

Your windswept golden hair outperformed the glancing light.

 

Even if it was just brown anyway.

 

“What?” You elongated the word in a nasal-tone like a whining child.

 

“It’s just a bit of laundering,” you chuckled as if it were nothing to deceive and to lie.

 

I tilted my head back in frustration. Was it because you were not cooperating with me or because this meant jail time for you?

 

You backtracked.

 

“What if I told you I didn’t do it?” Your words were laced with mockery. Your sly smile wrinkled the skin around your eyes. You looked old.

 

You were a mountain.

 

Your continuous contradiction boiled my blood. Your laugh lines set fire to my soul.

 

Were those lines there because you had a life before this one? Or because of your cunning grin?

 

“That’s a nice badge you got there, Officer Bergara,” you said, forcibly spitting out the last two words.

 

You flicked it and ran your practiced hand over it until I slapped it away.

 

I asked you Shane, or should I say Mr. Madej, did you do it or did you not?

 

“I did not.”

 

You lifted your colossal feet onto the table and crossed your ankles. You reclined back into your chair with your hands locked behind your head.

 

I stared at you in displeasure and told you I couldn’t do this.

 

That I needed somebody else to deal with it.

 

I gave you, an ill-mannered crook, an embittered glare as I left the room,

 

Only to receive a wink and a boyish grin in return.

 

 

**“When the Fox hears the Rabbit scream he comes a-runnin', but not to help.”**

**\- Thomas Harris, Silence of The Lambs**

 

I let my body sink into the chair I had bought myself when I had been appointed.

 

I was beginning to doubt I deserved the position anymore.

 

You.

 

I was unable to carry out simple things.

 

An interrogation.

 

Without breaking under the hardship.

 

Hardship or love? I still can’t recall.

 

Both.

 

I used to be the meanest, the strongest. Relentless.

 

But my strength and willpower died when she did.

 

I said I should not have let her go out that night.

 

I said I should have been better to her.

 

I said I was agitated and confused. I still am the latter.

 

I plugged it in anyways.

 

I knew very well that what I was about to see could demolish any attempt I had made

 

Of getting over it.

 

Over the December owls yelling and complaining and crying at me.

 

I watched the pixels dance across the screen to form her body.

 

They formed the part of the video I had not seen. I was not watching it as a lawman now.

 

I was watching it as your husband.

 

Sorry, I slipped up, I mean  _her_ husband.

 

The abstract, phosphorescent woman fell to the ground.

 

She had already been on her knees. Now I know it was so she didn’t scare the lamb as she wrung its neck.

 

How kind of her.

 

Whatever was inside her head barrelled across the room and was now plastered to the aristocratic walls.

 

It was her brain.

 

Her life.

 

She had always relied on her intelligence.

 

The surveillance video switched to the front porch. Didn’t want me to see my wife on the floor.

 

It was a signature Los Angeles evening. Little white gnats danced in front of the camera, showing themselves on my screen.

 

Then the man walked out onto the porch.

 

Lanky, tall like a mountain.

 

Hands woven into his golden hair, which was actually just brown.

 

He was distressed.

 

It was you. I knew it was, although it was impossible to really tell.

 

Your face was not showing.

 

I paused the video. I could hear my heart’s thudding chorus in my eardrums.

 

Because you had killed her. In a strange home in Los Angeles. A home that was not my home.

 

A silver tag hung off your belt loop, reflecting the lazy light outside.

 

It simply read S.A.M. Golden.

 

I simply assumed it was because you were a golden boy.

 

You always had been.

 

 

**“A kiss is a secret which takes the lips for the ear.”**

**\- Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac**

 

You knocked on the door of my hotel room and asked if I had any snacks.

 

Where would I get snacks in this little town?

 

I glanced at the clock. It read 3 AM. The witching hour, I suppose.

 

You barged into the dilapidated room. You searched the cupboards,

 

It was dark. The aggressive street lamps from outside shone through the blinds and drew lines onto the carpeted floor.

 

You rummaged.

 

I rubbed my eyes. Carded my fingers through my jet black hair.

 

And wondered why I was here with you. In a foreign town. In a foreign hotel. In a foreign room with the man who

 

Shot her.

 

And why I had not

 

Turned you in.

 

Or better.

 

Shot you back.

To death this time.

 

It seemed so simple

  
So seamless.

 

So I looked at you with a beckoning but oh so innocent gaze and you halted your foraging.

 

You looked at me back with bravery and self-confidence.

 

And placed your heavy hand on my chest and pushed me back

 

(Like you had done at the rest-stop in New Mexico)

 

Into a dark corner. Dipped your head.

 

And pressed your lips to mine.

 

Something you had failed to do at the rest-stop in New Mexico.

 

But what we had done was the carrier of death because

 

You had shot her.

 

And I tasted whiskey as our breath intertwined.

 

I was beginning to think

 

You didn’t come here for snacks.

 

 

**“I could not tell you if I loved you the first moment I saw you, or if it was the second or third or fourth. But I remember the first moment I looked at you walking toward me and realized that somehow the rest of the world seemed to vanish when I was with you.”**

**\- Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince**

 

I remember distinctly the days before you kissed me.

 

I remember distinctly what I felt as your name displayed itself shamelessly on my telephone.

 

I was in my car.

 

I ached with frustration.

 

Like always, she had died and you had killed her and that killed me.

 

Did it kill me because she was dead or because you were the one who did it?

  
Both.

 

I had developed a soft-spot for you because of the rough-hewn photo album you had slipped into my backpack.

 

Funny. Wrong.

 

A soft-spot for the man who had murdered my wife.

 

I answered.

 

“Where did you go? I’m supposed to have you in prison.”

 

Anger danced across my tongue.

 

You responded with a lampoon. Mocking me, asking if the real reason I was chasing you was because you were meant to be behind bars.

 

Was it mockery or was it lust. I still don’t know.

 

It was hard to tell with you.

 

“Is that really the reason you’re chasing after me, Bergara?”

 

Pause. Silence. Beat. Whatever you wanted to call it.

 

You told me where you were.

 

Somewhere in Nevada.

 

I could hear the smile plastered on your face.

 

You were under the impression you had complete control

 

Over me.

 

And our lips had not even touched yet.

 

But I was the cop and you were the criminal

 

And you had complete control over me.

 

I told you I couldn’t keep playing your stupid game.

 

That you were a criminal.

 

That it wasn’t funny.

 

So you whispered to me through the telephone line

 

“See you tonight at Genoa Bar and Saloon.”

  
I could hear you wink at me.

 

So I got in my car.

 

And I drove.

 

 

**"The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”**

**- Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov**

 

“He’s just a kid,” she emphasized. Speaking in a harsh, but quiet tone in the other room.

 

I sat on our couch and I listened.

 

Wondered who she was talking to.

 

But she was free to do as she pleased.

 

I was not an overbearing husband.

 

Therefore, she could talk to whoever she pleased

 

On the telephone.

 

“You know you can’t do that to a kid.”

 

There was a pause, drawn out like a sentence from a drunk man’s lips.

 

Faint murmurs.

 

“Me?” She said.

 

 

 

 **“The heart can think of no devotion**  
**Greater than being shore to the ocean-**  
**Holding the curve of one position,**  
**Counting an endless repetition.”**

**\- Robert Frost**

I pulled my car into a rest-stop

 

Somewhere

 

In the depths of the Rocky Mountains of New Mexico.

 

Even though my eye was inflamed,

 

And my body was fickle,

 

I was chasing after you.

 

My wrist itched because

 

I was still wearing my patient wristband.

 

And the plastic dug beneath my skin.

 

It hurt. But I was strong

 

I liked to think.

 

I got a message from you. Shane Madej.

 

It was a picture of my parked car at the rest-stop.

 

The old pick-up I rented after I got out of

 

The hospital.

 

And me staring down at the message I had just received.

 

And this was the first time I called our chase a game. Or not a game.

 

I knew it was more than that.

 

“This is not some game, Madej, this is the law.”

 

“You’re playing with the law here!”

 

I shouted into the abyss. How dull. How dim-witted.

 

I knew you were there.

 

“I could have a whole team of guys after you right now!”

 

I wondered why I didn’t have just that.

 

Why it was just me

 

Chasing a killer through

 

The Rocky Mountains of New Mexico.

 

I hear a snicker.

 

Nearly a laugh.

 

You emerged from behind an outhouse.

 

So I asked you

 

With a lump in my throat

 

“Why did you kill my wife,

Sam Golden?”

 

You were taken aback by the nickname I had given you.

 

The last time I saw you

 

I had shot you in a grand hotel.

 

The last time you saw me was after I had been

 

Beaten up.

 

A thin red line traced the thunderous mountain tops

 

The rest of the sky, a deep blue.

 

No cars.

 

Just me and you.

 

I mean _you_ and _me_.

 

You were even about to answer my previous inquiring

 

And tell me everything.

 

Tell me why you had done it.

 

But as though it was meshed into your perfect little plan,

 

A pair of headlights, the eyes of unblinking giants

 

Emerged from around the bend.

 

So you grabbed my wrist.

 

The one that was burdened with a patient wristband

 

And pulled me behind the outhouse.

 

Panicked.

 

And you pressed one hand to my chest.

 

The other to my mouth.

 

I could taste the beads of salt accumulating on your palm

 

Against my lips.

 

I could barely see because

 

The rest-stop didn’t have a damn light.

 

The headlights passed.

 

And the atmosphere shifted from unnerved and hushed to tranquil.

 

Tranquil.

 

Even though the body of the man who had murdered my wife

 

Was pressed against my own.

 

I asked you what the fuck you were doing, dude.

 

We sat at a picnic table in the humidity of the evening.

 

And you told me about him.

 

You hid us away behind the outhouse

 

And pressed me into the wall

 

And spoke with hushed tones into my ear

 

Because you owed him money.

 

It was always money.

 

The world’s dilemmas revolved around money like planets around the sun.

 

But maybe this time money was a blanket.

 

A cover-up.

 

Covering up the fact that you didn’t care if he beat and hit and killed you for money.

 

But you cared if he did the same to me.

 

I asked why he had had your phone

 

When I had traced it.

 

And after moments of unknowing silence that I would have drowned in if I didn’t know how to swim,

 

I asked you again why you took her life from her.

 

“I don’t kill people without a reason, Ryan, let’s just say that.”

 

I wish you had called me “Officer.”

 

Because even though you were taller than me

 

And I was used to it,

 

I felt smaller than I ever had, like a chicken cowering from the farmer’s knife.

 

Only to be eaten for dinner.

 

You didn’t answer my question.

 

My head was hot.

 

My stomach and my heart sank.

 

Frustration.

 

And I turned into a puddle in the middle of the desert mountains of New Mexico.

 

I yelled and I groaned and I hit things.

 

I didn’t hit you.

 

My indignant hollers ricocheted off the mountain faces.

 

This is the first time I saw worry in your eyes.

 

Although I had only met you twice.

 

One of which I had shot you

 

And that time I did not see worry in your eyes.

 

You told me you were going to go.

 

And your lanky legs carried you to your car that was hidden from view.

 

And I had no energy to follow you.

  
So I stayed at the rest-stop

 

And watched you drive away.

 

 

 

**“One day, the life we have, will be gone.”**

**- Lailah Gifty Akita**

 

The glow of a clear, blue morning shone through my car window.

 

Warming my cheeks.

 

I had slept in my car that night that you left me

 

At a rest-stop in New Mexico.

 

I searched my bag for a piece of peppermint gum

 

But pulled out a peculiar book instead.

 

It smelled musty.

 

Not a word with particularly positive connotations.

 

But the book didn’t have those connotations either.

 

It smelled like you.

 

I flipped through the pages and saw you.

 

Thousands of photos of

You.

 

Grinning a grin that was not interwoven with deceit like your grins were these days.

 

Dancing.

 

A child.

 

You held him as though the world would end tomorrow.

 

A monstrous smile on your face.

 

And on his.

 

Even though he seemed to be ill and declining.

 

His face was sunken in.

 

His eyes were dimmed grey.

 

But his smile radiated as though it were a lighthouse beckoning lost sailors.

 

I wondered who this child was.

 

A drawing scribbled with crayon onto a tattered piece of paper was pasted haphazardly to the page.

 

Orange and red and yellow mingled together.

 

The caption: “The Grand Canyon, Hanson’s Dream.”

 

Written in handwriting that did not belong to that of a little boy.

 

A dream of his.

 

And on the very last page, a photo of you.

 

Wooden floors, walls and windowsills.

 

Holding the delicate hands of the little boy.

 

And waltzing him around the dim-lit room.

 

I could hear the brilliant instrumental chorus broadcasting from the page.

 

And see your feet stepping in time.

 

And a name and a date.

 

Scribbled in charcoal pencil.

 

I knew it was charcoal because it smudged

 

When I gently ran my thumb over it.

 

“Hanson”

“August 9, 2002 - January 3, 2007”

 

5 months ago. January 3rd, 2007.

 

Below the date and the name and the photo.

 

A note. Written in thick, black marker.

 

“Keep dancing, Big Guy.”

 

Which was funny to me

 

Because the boy was ever so small.

 

Funnily enough,

 

January 3rd, 2007.

 

Was the same date she was killed.

 

 

 

**“Dance, when you're broken open. Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you're perfectly free.”**

**\- Rumi**

 

I arrived at the bar.

 

Genoa Bar and Saloon. Nevada.

 

Dingy and secluded.

 

The OPEN sign flickered.

 

I nodded at the bartender as I traversed through the empty bar and into a back room.

 

Following the incandescent voice of Nat King Cole

 

Pushing a heavy curtain out of the way

 

Just as I would push the hair out of your eyes later that night

 

As you hovered over top of me.

 

The floors of the back room were wooden and seemed to breathe with the beat of the music.

 

Settling.

 

There you were.

 

With red and blue light weakly illuminating your face.

 

You swayed to the harmonically-rich overtones.

 

Of King Cole’s “ _Unforgettable._ ”

 

“ _Unforgettable, that's what you are_

 

_Unforgettable though near or far”_

 

A single tear cascaded down your face, joining the red and blue light in painting your features.

 

You continued dancing, head tilted back.

 

Eyes closed.

 

“ _Like a song of love that clings to me_

_How the thought of you does things to me”_

 

Your hands were out

 

As if you were holding someone tightly to your chest

 

Never to let them go.

 

“ _Never before has someone been more_

 _Unforgettable in every way_ ”

 

It took every bit of energy I had.

 

“ _And forever more, that's how you'll stay_

_That's why, darling, it's incredible_

_That someone so unforgettable_

_Thinks that I am unforgettable too_ ”

 

To refrain from running out to you.

 

And holding you as you were the dancing ghost.

 

But instead I walked across the arthritic wooden floors.

 

With handcuffs in my hands.

 

“Ryan!” You exclaimed as if you had not been weeping mere moments before.

 

Don’t call me that.

 

“Fancy meeting you here!” You wiped the tear stains from your face.

 

And I pretended not to notice they were there.

 

 

Because I did not have a soft-spot for the man

 

Who murdered my wife.

 

I grabbed your wrist and let the handcuffs suffocate them,

 

Despite your protests.

 

“Hey, man, no need for that!”

 

“Dude come on,” you laughed nervously,

 

Finally realizing that this was the end.

 

I guess

 

You did not expect me to do it.

 

We got in the car and we drove

 

Back to Los Angeles

 

Where everything started.

 

When you realized where we were headed

 

You went quiet in the back seat.

 

And I went quiet in the front.

 

Because neither of us, the cop nor the criminal

 

Had any desire to go back

 

To our regular lives.

 

And it was not just because you dreaded the jail cell.

 

So I pulled into a hotel parking lot.

 

And told you we were getting separate rooms because

 

I didn’t want to sleep next to a murderer.

 

 

 

**“I felt rippling wheat field and crows circling within me. I was a vase of sunflowers ready to spit seeds like weapons at the world. I understood how a man could be mad enough to slice off his own ear, just to get back the person he loved most in the world.”**

**\- Jodi Baker**

I was angry at you.

 

I was outraged that I kissed the man who killed my wife.

 

I was outraged at _you_ for letting it happen.

 

I was outraged at the intermingling spit, the dark corners and the wandering hands

 

And we continued to drive back to LA

 

From the hotel.

 

With dread in the pits of our stomachs

 

Not because I had snapped at you for putting your lips on mine.

 

Not because you had chuckled selfishly, telling me it was my own fault.

 

But because we were going home

 

And it felt like anything but.

 

 

So we repeated the poisonous pattern

 

And got another hotel room.

 

I was going to be fired from my job.

 

But I didn’t deserve the job anyway.

 

Because I was unable to carry out simple things.

 

Refraining from kissing a criminal.

 

Twin beds.

 

Midnight.

 

You strided over to me.

 

I was cozy and unharmed under the elegant white sheets.

 

But I knew the sheets were corrupt anyway.

 

You sat on the corner of the bed, nearly teetering off,

 

Placed your hand under my shirt and drew a line down my chest.

 

I grasped your hand through the fabric

 

Trying to prevent it from travelling any further

 

But we were in a world

 

That was secluded from reality

 

Because I was letting the man who killed my wife

 

Fondle me beneath my clothes.

 

 

**"Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even."**

**\- Muhammad Ali**

 

You sulked in your cell

 

Three days after I sent a bullet through the meat of your shoulder

 

You told me you would find a way out of here.

 

I doubted you and

 

The next morning you were gone.

 

The confining door swung open.

 

And I volunteered

 

To chase you.

 

I tracked your phone.

 

It was easy to do

 

I thought

 

This will be seamless

 

I thought

 

Who knew I would end up with my hands tangled in your hair and my life tangled in an impeccable knot.

 

I was led to the Grand Canyon

 

By your phone, which was not really your phone.

 

You were not there.

 

He was there.

 

I asked him if he knew your whereabouts.

 

So he took me to the back of his van to show me the route you were on.

 

And he tied me up.

 

And left me with a bright purple mountain on my head to show for it.

 

I wondered why he had hit me and not killed me.

 

Seems like something he would do.

 

Then I knew it was because I had _your_

 

Information.

 

He didn’t need anything from me

 

Other than

 

A way to get to you.

 

Because you owed him money.

  
The cause of the world’s dilemmas.

 

 

 **“In this part of the story I am the one who**  
**dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,**  
**because I love you, Love, in fire and in blood.”**

**\- Pablo Neruda**

I struggled with the ropes

 

Tied round my wrists and ankles

 

As I was thrown around

 

In the back of the van

 

Without a seatbelt

 

As it maneuvered itself through the twists and turns of the road.

 

I thought it was ironic

 

To be a cop without a seatbelt.

 

 

I will admit,

 

There was a point I stopped fighting.

 

And remembered when everything was simple.

 

Remembered her.

 

Her soft hair and delicate features.

 

The hole on the side of my bed the night she left at two in the morning.

 

To “get a coffee”

 

And never come back.

 

I missed her.

 

And I did not know.

 

If I loved her.

 

 

 **“So it’s true, when all is said and done, grief is the price we pay for love.”**  
**― E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly**

 

“I don’t think I ever-”

 

Silence.

 

“Loved her,” you finished my sentence as you drew pictures on my bare chest

In the dark.

 

“Mm.”

 

I imagined you were drawing pictures of rifles

 

And skulls

 

And knives that had been bloodied

 

On my chest

 

Whilst whispering against my lips

 

And grazing your mouth over my ear.

 

 

 **“Never love anyone who treats you like you're ordinary.”**  
**― Oscar Wilde**

 

He pulled me out of the trunk.

 

My wrists bloody from the friction of the restraints.

 

He lay me gently on the ground.

 

Gently as though he had not just beat me and knocked my head against the hood of the van.

 

Then came the questions.

 

The questions about you.

 

That I couldn’t answer.

 

So he beat me again.

 

My blood stained the pavement.

 

And I fell asleep

 

And woke up in a dramatically white room

 

With blurry vision

 

And tubes hooked up to my arms.

 

And a patient wristband bound tightly around my wrist.

 

And I thought about

 

How you were the reason I ended up here.

 

With gashes and bruises freckling my body

 

Because you decided to run.

 

 

Then a nurse came in

 

She was short

 

A mousy face

 

But a big head that reminded me

 

Of yours.

 

“How did I get here?”

 

“Where am I?”

 

She told me

 

A man by the name of

 

Sam Golden

 

Had brought me here

 

Carrying me in his arms through the emergency room doors

 

My face buried in his neck

 

But she didn’t tell me the last part

 

I just inferred.

 

A chuckle escaped my throat

 

A chuckle that was not cheery.

 

A chuckle that was resemblant of yours.

 

It was silly that I was turning

 

Into you.

 

 

**“I'm not really sure why. But... do you stop loving someone just because they betray you? I don't think so. That's what makes the betrayal hurt so much - pain, frustration, anger."**

**\- Brandon Sanderson**

 

Although it felt like I had been to hell

 

The injuries he had afflicted upon me were not damaging enough

 

To keep me there.

 

At the hospital.

 

So I walked out

 

The summer air slamming me like a brick wall

 

I could have call it quits

 

Called my buddies back home and told them to continue the chase.

 

But I didn’t

 

And I continued to go after you.

 

Even though I was weak and at risk.

 

I didn’t know why.

 

I didn’t know where I was but

 

I received a call from an unknown number

 

Which despite what it was conveying on the screen, was barely unknown.

 

“How did you get my number?”

 

You snickered on the other end of the line.

 

“That’s for me to know, baby,” you maniacally chortled with an excessive amount of enthusiasm.

 

I asked where you were.

 

I needed to find you to put you behind bars.

 

Where you belonged.

 

I think that’s where you belonged.

 

But all you gave me were measly clues like this was some sort of game.

 

And I wanted to place my hands around your neck and squeeze until the life

 

Drained out of your eyes

 

Because I did not want to play.

 

“Forrest Fenn, you heard of him?”

 

“Find me where he buried his treasure.”

 

“I’m the treasure this time, baby!” Chuckle.

  
You hung up.

 

Don’t call me that.

 

Out of four options I travelled to

 

The Rocky Mountains of New Mexico

 

 

 

**"It was a dark little tale about a man who found a magic cup and learned that if he wept into the cup, his tears turned into pearls. But even though he had always been poor, he was a happy man and rarely shed a tear. So he found ways to make himself sad so that his tears could make him rich. As the pearls piled up, so did his greed grow. The story ended with the man sitting on a mountain of pearls, knife in hand, weeping helplessly into the cup with his beloved wife's slain body in his arms.”**

**\- Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner**

“You know my husband’s a cop, right?”

  
She muttered into the telephone line

 

In the other room

 

Like always.

 

“Just give him the medicine!”

  
She would say.

 

And I would sit sprawled across the couch.

 

With a beer in my hand

 

Numbing my palm.

 

“Then why doesn’t it work?”

  
She waited for a response from the other end.

 

She really should have been

 

More secretive with her telephone conversations.

 

“That amount of money?”

 

She said.

 

“Fine.”

  
She said

 

And when I asked who she was speaking to

 

She told me it was the caretaker

 

Of her father who was laden with dementia.

 

I did not know she had

 

A demented father.

 

She told me her father was

  
So stubborn

 

With taking his medication.

 

And that he had not yet decided who the money would go to after he passed away.

 

The cause of the world’s dilemmas.

 

She hoped it would go to her.

 

 

 

**“For there to be betrayal, there would have to have been trust first.”  
― Suzanne Collins**

 

My eyes flickered open

 

To see a Roman God

 

In his underwear

 

Desperately scurrying around the room.

 

For a moment I thought you were in such distress

 

Because I had let your hand travel down further than I should have.

 

 

You repeatedly glanced through a slat in the fallen blinds.

 

I joined you.

 

To see something familiar.

 

In the parking lot of the hotel.

 

Love?

 

Not yet.

 

A recognizable vehicle

 

Instead.

 

The one I had been tossed around in

 

As a cop without a seatbelt.

 

And had been thrown into the back of.

 

Tied up like a pig.

 

And I barely had time to process the events

 

That occured in my bed last night.

 

I guess it was _our_ bed.

 

I looked into your eyes and grabbed your shoulders,

 

Steadying you.

 

You looked anywhere but mine.

 

A crazed expression on your face.

 

The second time I saw worry in your eyes.

 

I could feel your boney elbows through your shirt.

 

You told me he wanted money from you.

 

The world’s dilemma.

 

That you didn’t want to give him.

 

Money that you didn’t have.

 

I would have thought with your

 

Graff Diamond watch

 

And your London Retro spectacles

 

And your golden hair.

 

You would have the money

 

The world’s dilemma

 

To pay him.

 

Weave the straw into gold, my dear.

 

You told me if you failed to give him the money.

 

He would kill you.

 

 

So my heart jumped into my throat

  
And my stomach sunk to my feet

 

And I threw up on the carpeted floor that we had stood on last night

 

As you removed my shirt from my back.

 

I needed to bring you back

 

To jail

 

Alive.

 

But we all know that was not the real reason

I threw up as I gripped your shirt fabric tightly between my fingers

 

And you placed a warm hand on my back.

 

It was simply because.

 

I needed to bring you back

  
Alive

 

Because I

 

Loved you.

 

 

We tried to escape

 

With boldness

 

And the willpower to survive

 

But all too soon

 

A gun

 

Or a big, black marker

 

I don’t quite remember which

 

Was against my temple

 

Drawing thick lines on my skin.

 

And I was told not to move.

 

So I didn’t.

 

“Do exactly as I say or I’ll kill your little pal.”

  
I wasn’t that little.

 

And you spat out his name

 

With disgust

 

As though you were discarding your phlegmy spit

 

Onto the side of a busy street.

 

I asked you how you knew him.

 

Why you owed him

 

The world’s dilemma.

 

The gun pressed harder into my head

 

And you didn’t take a single glance at me

 

Because you were scared to

 

Watch me die.

 

He told you to give him the money

 

And you told him

 

“I’m not giving you any cash, Goldsworth.”

 

And he threatened to shoot me.

 

You laughed

 

“You can shoot him for all I care.”

 

You said

 

But you didn’t look at me

 

As his fingernails dug deeper into my biceps

 

Because you were scared

 

To watch me die.

 

“Give me the fucking money.”

 

“The drug didn’t work, Goldsworth.”

  
You hissed.

 

Your breath laced with

 

The tiniest hint

 

Of sadness.

 

“So I don’t owe you shit.”

 

“Hmm. I wonder why it didn’t work.”

  
He tapped his chin with his nimble pointer finger

 

A demonic grin pulling at his lips.

 

And then you broke.

 

You howled and moaned like I had that night

 

At the rest-stop in New Mexico.

 

You hit things.

 

You didn’t hit me.

 

You gritted your teeth

 

And through a clenched jaw, growled

 

“Kill him.”

 

He told you he would not let you off that easy.

 

And it hurt me to know

 

That letting you off easy

 

Would be to kill the man you had lay with

 

The night before.

 

 

 **“Stab the body and it heals, but injure the heart and the wound lasts a lifetime.”**  
**― Mineko Iwasaki**

 

He threw us both in the back of the truck.

 

Without seatbelts.

 

At least have a little respect.

 

And even though our hands were bound with rope

 

And you had just told a him to shoot me

 

Our fingers interlocked

 

Because you were afraid.

 

And I was afraid.

 

That we would have to watch each other die.

 

Pulled us out in a warehouse.

 

And beat me.

 

Again.

 

And you let him.

 

Because you didn't have any money to give.

 

And you would give the life of the man whose

 

Jawline you had traced with your lips

 

For money.

 

The world’s dilemma.

 

Sick.

 

My eyes were red-rimmed.

 

My nose was mangled

 

I barely remembered what it looked like before.

 

Bloody spit drooled from my slack jaw.

 

And I was starting to think

 

The outside now reflected the man I was within

 

An ugly liar who

 

Kissed the man who murdered my wife.

 

 

**“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.”**

**― James Baldwin**

 

You sat in the hospital courtyard.

 

One leg crossed over the other.

 

The evening sun casting shadows on your features

 

That were not beautiful to me anymore

 

I like to think they never were.

 

I hobbled out with a long white gown

 

And sat silently next to you

 

And traced the patterns on the table

 

With my finger.

 

“Hey! Look who it is! The mighty bear awakes from his slumber,” you teased

 

But it had lost its previous tang

 

Now you were just speaking words

 

Might as well say nothing

 

At all.

 

I didn’t laugh

 

Or crack a smile because

 

I had said to you, as I lay in the hospital bed,

 

Your thumb brushing over the back of my hand,

 

“You stuck around.”

 

Blankly.

 

Staring up at the sealing.

 

Still full of pain

 

Not because I had been kicked and hit

 

But because you had told the man

 

That it was alright

 

If he killed me.

 

And that killed me.

 

I would have rather been shot in the head by his thick, black marker.

 

“You would have let that happen to me?”

  
I grasped onto the last string of hope.

 

You wouldn’t dare meet my gaze.

 

A long string of silence floated through the room.

 

Until i mumbled that I hated you.

 

And you met my gaze

 

You fed, like a demon, off of negativity.

 

“I hate you.”

  
“You killed my wife and I hate you.”

 

“I hate your comebacks and I hate your ego and I hate that you don’t fucking care about anyone or anything other than yourself.”

  
“And your money.”

 

You spoke not a single word.

 

Released your desperate grip on my hand.

 

And walked out to the courtyard.

 

And I lay my head back on my ill-fitting pillow

 

Regretful.

 

  
A silence fell over the courtyard as my eyes traced over your glowing cheeks

 

Examining them.

 

After a quiescent mist fell over us

 

I asked you where Goldsworthhad gone.

 

You told me you got rid of him.

 

That you dealt with him.

  
And I didn’t ask any further questions because

 

I didn’t want to know what evil things a handsome man

 

With soft features

 

And an exquisite grin

 

Like you

 

Could do.

 

 

Then you said it.

 

What you had been meaning to say.

  
Dropped it on me like a piano falling from the sky.

 

Playing sweet melodies as it fluttered down.

 

“You know I have a kid, Ryan.”

 

You had lost your mockery.

 

Your tone glided through the crisp air.

 

“ _Had_ a kid.”

 

Your gaze dropped.

 

“So that’s where you’re wrong, Officer Bergara, I do fucking care about someone other than myself. I care about him.”

 

I wish you called me Ryan.

 

“And I care

About you.”

 

And you didn’t bother to look at me

 

Before you promptly walked off in anger

 

Abandoning me.

 

 

 **“Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”**  
**― Kahlil Gibran**

 

So I recovered by myself.

 

After you left the note.

 

I did not even tell my mother I had been overpowered by

 

A man who wanted money.

 

That I had been hurt.

 

And thrown around aimlessly in the back seat of a van

  
Without a seatbelt.

 

So she didn’t come to visit.

 

And I was alone.

 

Life went on.

 

And I like to think that

 

I didn’t give a second thought about you,

 

The man who killed my wife.

 

I rolled back into my regular job.

 

And into my regular life.

 

It should have been peaceful.

 

But my body ached for adventure.

 

For you.

 

And I came upon the file.

 

One I had simply missed before.

 

Got cut out.

 

Footage.

 

It showed you.

 

Running disturbed into the living room

 

With the aristocratic walls.

 

Just as she was about to

 

Shoot him.

 

Your son.

 

The little lamb.

 

With a big

 

Black

 

Pen.

 

And you watched

 

As the bullet travelled in slow motion through the tension

 

And planted itself in his chest.

 

And when it happened,

 

His grey eyes shut tightly

 

He held out his little, perspiring hand to you

 

As if you would hold it as you had held it all the times before

 

And it would bring him back to life.

 

And even though blood trickled down his sunken cheek.

 

His lighthouse of a smile remained

 

Even though

 

You never held his hand.

 

Because you watched as after she shot the little boy,

 

She held the gun

 

Or the black pen

 

To her own head.

 

And blew her intelligence against the wall.

 

And you walked out onto the front porch

 

And threw up.

 

And I was not there to rub your back.

 

And now I had no excuse.

 

For keeping myself from falling deeply in love with you.

 

Because you were no longer the man who killed my wife.

 

 

I watched your interview, you know.

 

The one with the police after the incident.

 

The one where you explained it all.

 

I just wondered

 

Why you never explained it to me.

 

“Why did you tell Officer Bergara you killed his wife?”

 

“Oh, officer, that pea sized brain of yours is unable to comprehend why.” The officer gave you a stern look.

 

At your remark.

 

“I simply told him that I did it because if he knew his girlfriend had shot herself in the head his weak little heart would hurt one thousand times worse than it already does.”

 

“Why did she…”

 

Hesitation

 

“Kill Hanson Madej?”

 

You swallowed

 

Lost your ego

 

Serious.

 

And you pretended like

 

Hearing his name didn’t make you want to fall to your knees

 

And sob

 

Because you tried everything you could do to keep him alive

But you didn’t hold his hand

When there was nothing more you could.

 

“I was told by some of my pals that Goldsworth had a drug that could get Hanson better. I got into the business, sold everything I had but he kept raising the price and all for nothing. It didn’t work. Hanson got sicker.”

 

You were angry now

 

Standing up.

 

And it scared me

 

To see you in this state.

 

But everything scared me now.

 

“He sent her to kill my kid because I didn’t hand over the fucking money.”

 

“Why didn’t you give Mr. Goldsworth the money?”

 

“Don’t call him ‘Mr.” like he’s some kind of Royal on a throne. He doesn’t deserve it.”

 

You spat.

 

“I didn’t give him the money because I had none left.”

 

You slammed your hand on the table.

 

Lightly.

 

Defeated.

 

You lost your pride.

 

I paused the footage.

 

And drew in a deep breath

 

Something I often failed to do

 

When I was with you.

 

**"Never say goodbye, because goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting."**

**\- Peter Pan**

I returned to my bed from the courtyard.

 

After you had stormed off.

 

To find a bright yellow note

 

Taped delicately to my pillow

 

“I’ve decided to skip town. Don’t come looking for me.

 

SAM Golden.”

 

So I didn’t.

 

 

**“Let us dance in the sun, wearing wild flowers in our hair.”**

**\- Susan Polis Schutz**

 

After I paused the footage,

 

I let it sink in.

 

Like a ship plummeting to the bottom of the sea.

 

And all too soon,

 

The normality of my life shifted because

 

 

I was in love with you.

 

 

So I drove to where I knew you would be.

  
The Grand Canyon.

 

It was vivid.

 

The sun was about to go to sleep.

 

She didn’t have anyone to embrace her after dark

 

She never had the chance to meet the moon in an interrogation room.

 

I saw you.

 

I knew I would.

 

Your hair shining in the red light.

 

I sat next to you.

 

You didn’t look at me.

 

Instead we gazed out onto the vast orange gold

  
That stretched out for miles

 

The colour of fire hearths and

  
Tangerines.

 

Matching that of the sky.

 

You gazed at the rise and fall of the tumultuous cliffs.

 

Lost in the rhythmic percussion.

 

Your eyes steadied on the horizon,

 

Face aglow with the last orange rays

 

Before twilight beckons the stars.

 

Your lips

 

The ones I yearned to brush against my own

 

Became beared with the semblance of a smile

 

Just enough to show that you were enjoying your thoughts

 

Whatever they may be.

 

I moved closer to you

 

So you could feel my presence

 

But allowed you to remain lost in the moment a little while longer.

 

I felt a soft hand hovering above my own

 

Fingers interlaced.

 

You asked me if I hear that.

 

I listened and faint music playing in the distance called back to me.

 

Laughter too.

 

Laughter that was not ours.

 

Smoke danced in the air

 

As if excited to

 

Escape the confinement

 

Of the fire.

 

As you had been excited to escape me.

 

To play your stupid little game.

 

But the game was over now.

 

The war is over.

 

Now,

 

You clutched my wrist and pulled me up

 

And we waltzed like the smoke

 

And we laughed like the moon

 

And you looked to the sky

 

Luminous petals freckled the abyss.

 

Let out a shaky breath as if you were about to say something.

 

But closed your mouth.

 

And clutched my hand

 

Like you should've clutched his

 

When he was departing.

 

I gazed up

 

And pressed my lips to your tattered shirt

 

And said against your chest.

 

“Keep dancing, Big Guy.”

 

 

 

 **“Even when I'm dead, I'll swim through the Earth,**  
**like a mermaid of the soil, just to be next to your bones.”**  
**― Jeffrey McDaniel**

I tell you the same thing now.

 

As I am the one who sits by your side

 

And holds your frail hand, scattered with lines

 

As you are hooked up to machinery

 

Breathing for you.

 

With a patient wristband bound to your wrist

 

The maps of wrinkles on our faces

 

Tell of our journey

 

Of love

 

With creaks and frailties.

 

I know you will not leave me today

 

Like you have left me all those times before.

 

But all those times before you did not really leave me

 

Because you always came back.

Because you

Love me.

 

I know you will not leave me today.

 

Though you have lines on your skin.

 

And shallow breaths.

 

I know I will not throw your dust to the wind.

 

Because you are too much of a runner.

 

A fighter.

 

Sometimes I wonder

 

If you should have run away from me for all those months

 

Or if you should have

 

Danced away instead.

 

 


End file.
